Sunday, January 28, 2007

Voting starts soon!!!!!

I thought that I would let you all know that I have entered my hall table into a online contest.



It's at www.lumberjocks.com Go there and take a look. I don't know if you have to sign up to vote or not. But for those of you that are interested in woodworking it is a really good site. I always go to fine woodworking website, but have found that the people at this site are friendlier. So go there and vote, of course I want you to vote for me, but look at the great work and vote.

I'll let you all know the results in a couple of weeks.



Kaleo

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Let's get started

Well finally it is time to get back into it. I have been looking forward to this week for, well at least 4 weeks. On Monday we were allowed officially back into the shop. What a great felling. But it surprised me to only see 4 other on the 12 classmates in total. I guess some are just enjoying there break to much. Any who there have been some changes, of which I'm sure there will be more to mention next time. As this week has only been for us second years. So the new first years don't start until Monday. Then is when we will here all the changes that are happening.

But the major change that we know about is the addiction of a new director. The University has gone with one of it's own on this. They brought in a guy by the name of Simon Ancher. A young ( maybe the same age as me ) designer. And I say designer because that is what he is. None of us are to sure about what kind of maker this guys is. Which bothers me some, but also knowikng that it shouldn't really effect me what he does. This because of the guest lecturers that we are going to have In the second year program.

But I have been busy this week. Busy with whatever it is that I wanted to do. So I have been making another hall table. This one is the big brother to the "8" table that I made last year.



But instead of using solid timber I have veneered the entire thing so far. I did this for a few reasons. By veneering I can guarantee that the table is not going to move. As in wood movement, there will be none. Another is because it's environmentally better. I use less timber when I veneer. But I know that you want to know the real reason. And that is because I didn't want to spend any money. The school provides MDF and other man made timber product and veneers. So nothing out of my pocket.



Well I also thought I would post a few pictures of the new tool cabinet that I made. It is just made out of MDF but it is nice to have a little extra space.



I found this great podcast for those of you that know what that is, it's called The Wood Whisperer. Go to Itunes and look it up it is really good.

Well until next time, keep in touch and play nice with others

Kaleo

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Isn't this break over yet?

I have to admit I thought that I coould make it through this break. But man it has already been a really long break. Of course it started early in December. But it started great with the trip to New Zealand, then there was Christmas and New Years. But now it's just plan boring. I looked for some work. I appliked for anything even fast food. But nothing came about. The only thing that seemed like there could be some hope was fruit picking. But that required either a car to get there or a long bus trip or a ride. But that didn't pan out either. Can you believe that with skills like these that I couldn't find any work.



I finally got a call from a former student from the school, asking if I could give him a hand with a public art project thta he was doing. So I got about 2 days of workk out of it. He paid me 15 an hour cash. But it got me out of the house and out of Jana's hair. I have disrupted her and Kai's schudule. Then after that I spoke to our teaching assistant, that is backk at work. I asked if it would bother him if I came in to the shop and muck around for awhile. He said that it would be fine as long as I didn't tell the other students, because he didn't want all of us in.



So then I spent the next few days cleaning up my new bench area and getting everything organized. Then I decided to build a tool chest. Nothing worth bragging about. Just a cabinet made of MDF, just to hold all my hand tools and some of my markking devices and sandpaper and some router bits.

School doesn't start officially until the 29th of January. And out first guest lecturer doesn't come until 19th of Febuary. So there still is awhile to wait to really get this year started.

I'll check in again with all of you later.

Monday, January 1, 2007

The New Year!!

Well we here in Australia are now 12 hours into the new year and to you back in the states the future looks good. Not a lot has happened since the last post. We had a wonderful Christmas. We had some good friends come over for dinner on Christmas eve. And we had a really good time watching Kai open the presents. As we predicted he ran out Christmas morning and said "WOW lots of presents" Even though there were only 4 or 5 presents under the tree. But when he went to sleep there was only one. He got a Thomas the Tank Engine train set and a mini basketball and hoop, and a little "working bench" that's what he calls it, with some plastic tools.



So it has been a nice break. But I am starting to get a little bored. I think that I'll head over to the school tomorrow and see if it is open. The teaching assistant has to be there. So when he is around, he doesn't mind if a few of us show up. That basically means the Americans, because we have nothing else to do.

We hope you have had a good holiday season and wish you the best for the new year.